


Burying Hannibal

by queen_insane



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Book Spoilers, Character Death, M/M, Some Fluff, Some angst, is anyone really dead though?, that is the question
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:43:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_insane/pseuds/queen_insane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For this prompt on the kink meme: </p>
<p>It's been years since Hannibal has escaped from prison and even though Will has been trying to move on, he secretly still waits for Hannibal to pay him a visit one more time. However, there's no sign of the other man and Will begins to wonder whether he has been forgotten ... until he receives a phone call from a woman called Clarice who tells him that Hannibal Lecter has passed on and asked for Will to be at his funeral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt Fill can be found: [HERE](http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/2246.html?thread=3764422#cmt3764422)

The phone call comes while he is making dinner, it’s nothing like Hannibal could make Will’s mind whispers, and he hates himself a little for it. Will hardly ever cooks, it’s when the ghost of Hannibal comes to visit, when he longs for the man who has long since escaped jail. Usually he does take-out, too exhausted to exert the effort.

Who hasn’t come to see him. Will is long since abandoned.

Each day Will has to remind himself that he doesn’t miss him. That he doesn’t miss the voice of the man who betrayed him, who stabbed him and left him scars that cannot be seen on the outside. A man who, only in the dead of night, can Will admit he loves. Time has not changed the fact that Will longs for him to come sweep him away.

The phone rings and then goes to voicemail. Outside his house, the world holds little of interest for Will anymore. If it is truly important, the person will call again.

Will is surprised when the phone rings a second time, and he debates letting it once more go to voicemail. Curiosity overcomes his want of solitude and on the fourth ring he picks up the phone.

“Is this Will Graham?”

It’s a woman’s voice on the end of the line, “Yes.” He answers her.

“Will Graham,” she says his name like she knows him, like a lover, “This is Clarice Starling.”

He recognizes that name, has heard it brought up in conversation with Hannibal’s. This is the woman Hannibal choose over him, the person that Will could not be until it was too late. Part of him wants to shut his phone off and ignore her, pretend that this call never happened. However something about Clarice’s voice tells him that’s a bad idea, “This had better be important.”

A pause, and then the woman on the end of the line seems to sob quietly, “Hannibal passed away three days ago. I thought you would want to know.”

Something in Will gives way. He had thought of this moment of course, but it had never passed his mind as something that could actually happen. He collapses into his dinning room chair and stares at his meal. Realizes that Hannibal will not come back. That he will not have a chance to show Hannibal how much he has missed him, and he does, he finally admits to himself fully. He will not be able to find a way to make Hannibal kiss him like he used to. Before things went bad, before the knife in his gut and duplicity lead him astray.

“Are you still there Mr. Graham?”

He finds his voice but it is weak, “Yes.”

“I am going to have him buried in Lithuania, it will only be us, and the few friends he has made here in Prague.”

The word friend makes Will want to laugh, because Hannibal never had friends, only those he deemed worthy enough to live, and then out of those, people who Hannibal thought most interesting of all. And yet he finds he cannot laugh at this, the humor of that statement stuck in his throat.

“I will be there.”

Through the speakerphone he can hear Clarice sniff as if trying to pull herself together, “I will call you with the details of everything when the planning is done.”

“Thank you.” Will says, and means it.

\-----

 

The burial happens on a sunny day. There is no church service; instead they meet directly at the grave site. Will wears his best black suit and thinks that Hannibal would be proud. Overall the suit cost enough money to pay for someone’s rent, of that he is sure, but wearing it gives him some sense of control. It is the only time he has felt in control in clothing like this.

When he pulls up to the small graveyard a woman wearing a bright yellow dress comes to meet him. She is beautiful but her eyes – what little of them he glances at –remind him of his own, and he knows that he is looking at Clarice Starling. She smiles at him as he gets out of the car and she points to the sky, “It is a good day for a burial, don’t you think?”

He looks up at the sky and then down at the ground, “I don’t think Hannibal would care about the weather at his burial, I only think that he would judge the sort of music that was played.”

“That is very much the truth.”

The burial is short and sweet, as they lower the coffin into the empty hole in the ground they play Vide Cor Meum and Will thinks that it’s fitting. Part of him wants to cry but finds that he cannot. When he looks around to the small crowed of gatherers he finds their eyes wet with tears. A sideways glance at Clarice allows him to feel less alone. Her eyes are just as dry as his are. It’s a small comfort.

When it is done, and most of the guests have left he stands at the grave, “I find, after all those moments when I sat in your chair and told you secrets I did not want to tell, in this moment when I want to speak to you, I cannot find the words.” He scruffs the dirt with his shoe tries once more to find more words but only finds three, “Rest well Hannibal.”

It seems too simple, but words seem petty. Clarice comes to stand next to him, “I didn’t know what to say to him either. I was a mess the first few days, and then I thought I should be angry that he left me, or perhaps, that I wasn’t sad enough that he was dead. I felt none of those things.”

“Yes.”

“We are, I suppose, what he made us. I also wish I could hate him for that, but I cannot.”

“Yes.”

She looks at him, “Ye of little words I see.”

He doesn’t say anything and they stare at his grave a little longer. Eventually she turns to walk away, looks back at him after a distance as if considering something, “Come with me to Italy?”

Will turns, “Yes.”


	2. Bonus!Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Clarice arrive in Italy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is something that I wanted to add onto the fill but because of that nature of what was asked instead works as a Bonus!Ending that does not have to be taken as part of the original fill, but that I really wanted to add on anyway. IE: If you want to ignore this part, ignore it.

The sun from the funeral seems to follow them to Italy. The taxi Clarice calls for them rolls down a private cobbled street and Will thinks that this property looks too rich and too lavish for someone like Clarice. When they stop at the house he steps out of the car and admires the sprawling countryside around them.

It is surprising considering that the house is only about thirty minutes drive from the city of Florence, but he is glad of the distance from the city. It reminds him of the house he used to live in with all his dogs. Before he had to give that up for a last chance of sanity he’s not sure he has yet found.

Clarice pays the driver and he helps them take their bags inside.

Perhaps the first clue Will should notice is that the house looks lived in, but he is too busy taking in his new surroundings to notice. The next clue should be the smells coming from the kitchen. Those too go unnoticed, but the voice that startles him as he is staring out the window is impossible to ignore, “It is good to see you again Will.”

When he turns he thinks he should feel shock, or perhaps fear, all he feels is a sense of relief.  
“Hannibal.”

“I have found that sometimes, when people get too close to the truth of me, it is necessary to pretend one is dead. I hope you do not mind dear Will.”

The idea of it is so outlandish and yet so Hannibal he finds he cannot. He turns to find Clarice, perhaps to scold her but she has departed to places elsewhere in the house. To give them space he is sure, “Clarice is a better actor than I gave her credit.”

“She is better than a lot of people give her credit for.” Hannibal pauses, “But we are not here to talk about her. Are you angry at me?”

“I want to be. But my mind seems to be to elated that you are not six feet under to care.”

“And how shall I repay you this injustice?”

For this at least, Will does not have to think, “Kiss me.”

Hannibal does.


End file.
